The present invention is directed to nanostructures in general and to metal nanoblades in particular. Oblique angle deposition has been demonstrated as an effective technique to produce three-dimensional nanostructures, such as nanosprings and nanorods; see for example Robbie et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A, 15, 1460 (1997); Zhao et al., SPIE Proceedings 5219, 59 (2003). Because of the physical shadowing effect, the oblique incident vapor is preferentially deposited onto the highest surface features.